Apparently not satisfied with merely screwing over gays and lesbians in California, the Mormon Church is currently mobilizing its extremely productive, teetotaling followers to block civil unions for same-sex couples in Illinois.

On Tuesday the Church sent out an email alerting LDS faithful to a civil unions bill set to go before the Illinois legislature tomorrow. The letter calls on followers to blast legislators with calls and letters opposing the measure.

Why is the Mormon Church so deeply alarmed by civil unions legislation in Illinois? Because it will shatter social mores and crush the innocence of children. Duh.

According to the letter:

This bill will legalize civil unions in the state of Illinois, and will treat such civil unions with the same legal obligations, responsibilities, protections and benefits as are afforded within marriage. In other words, civil unions will be different in name only from marriage. As has already been seen in Massachusetts, this will empower the public schools to begin teaching this lifestyle to our young children regardless of parental requests otherwise. It will also create grounds for rewriting all social mores; the current push in Massachusetts is to recognize and legalize all transgender rights (An individual in Massachusetts can now change their drivers license to the gender they believe themselves to be, regardless of actual gender, which means that confused men and women are now legally entering one another’s bathrooms and locker rooms. What kind of a safety issue is this for our children?). Furthermore, while the bill legalizes civil unions, it will be used in the courts to show discrimination and will ultimately lead to court mandated same-sex marriages.

The Mormon church recently attracted controversy for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in its push to pass California’s discriminatory Prop. 8. Critics argued that the Church had overstepped its legal bounds by directly interfering in the legislative process (in a state other than Utah, no less). But I guess depriving minorities of fundamental civil rights is too important to leave to the government.

p.s. It needs to be said that not all Mormons support the Church’s bigoted stance towards gays. For example, the group Feminist Mormon Housewives took on the Church on their blog over Prop. 8. There are also gay Mormon groups, such as Affirmation, whose members identify with LDS teachings but reject the Church’s attitude towards LGBT people. Affirmation writes in its about page: “We rejoice in life. We reject the tyranny that would have us believe that who we are — gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender — is evil or wrong. We affirm that we are all children of loving Heavenly Parents.”